Category: 古い記事

古い日本語の記事

私の仕事であった

鍼灸師の国家試験を合格してから人の紹介で東京の世田谷区にある日産多摩川病院で代田文誌の息子代田文彦先生にて設立された「東洋医学研究所」に入所し、4年間勉強させて貰った。

4年の「勉強の成果」として二つの仕事を残した。無論主に自分の勉強だったが、その成果や雰囲気が後世の参考になるかも知れないとも思った。周りの人々に多少勉強した事を証明する必要もあった。

二つの仕事とは:

1) 外科手術後の患者ケアーに対する鍼灸治療の応用

  • これは事前計画し、許可を得た「前向き研究」であった。

2)癌治療 - 鍼灸師の観点から

  • これは凡そ3年の間個人的に癌の治療に興味があったため、積極的癌患者を診るようにした結果を纏めたものだ(後ろ向き調査)。

前者は術後疼痛に関するものだった。事前代田先生、外科の部長や外科の看護婦長などの方々から承諾を得てから、凡そ二年半を掛けた鍼治療で手術後の経過は変わるかどうかの「臨床試験」であった。結果をまとめた文章は医道の日本誌に発表された。(ドイツ語に書き直し、ドイツの専門雑誌に出版されたものもここでダウンロードできる)

後に購読していた専門雑誌で偶然私の文章が代田先生の名前で出版された事を発見した。代田先生に大いにお世話になって、特に恨みもないし、責めている訳でもないが、雑誌に出す際に一言を言って来れば嬉しかったのにと思った。

これは全文ではない

週刊朝日の記事

もう17-18年前の事ですが、本やでボート立ち読みした所で「朝日週刊詩」の特集「漢方」に気づいた。漢方に関する特集は一年に一度しか出さないそうです。

それを見て手紙を出した所で取材に来てくれた。scan した雑誌2ページ分をここに写真としてはります。上手く行けばその2ページ分を zip file として ”Download” の所にものせるつもりです。

Breathing

Everybody does it – 24 hours a day – no big deal. 

YES, big deal! 

Breathing is essential to life. This is common knowledge. You can survive (only survive, not live) for almost 2 months without food, something like 7-10 days without water, but the brain tissue starts dying 3 minutes after oxygen supply has been interrupted. So, breathing is required for survival and everybody does it throughout life, without any interruption. What can be so special about that? 

Special is, that ALL healthy babies do it right, but only VERY FEW adults seem to capable of maintaining this skill. If you don’t think that this applies to you, well give it a (simple) try. 

Go some place where you (and some noise) won’t bother ordinary people (who might otherwise call the police and try to commit you to a lunatic hospital) and scream. Yes, that’s right: scream. With all the power you have and as long as you can do it. Most people I know will be very lucky, if they can keep screaming at the top of their voices for 10-15 minutes. After that your voice will start “fading”, because you get hoarse and later you may not be able to talk properly for days. 

THAT would be “normal” for most educated, civilized people. 

My eldest son, when he was about 6 months old, once managed to scream for a full 5 hours – with no apparent trouble. Neither during the screaming nor afterwards. Why? Because he was breathing correctly (which the mother did not like at all at the time!)

 Correct breathing would be the so-called abdominal breathing. Deep and slow, having your belly expand and retract. Textbooks on physiology give the normal respiratory rate (the number of inhalation and exhalation per minute) as 12-15 cycles, meaning a cycle of inhalation and exhalation takes 4-5 seconds. 

Personally I believe that is too fast. 

Too fast, excessive breathing may lead to “hyperventilation syndrome”, a condition were the victim may drop to the ground with uncontrollable spasms – like an epileptic. But these victims don’t have any brain lesions, they simply exhale too much carbon dioxide. This happens frequently in young girls that keep screaming during a rock concert. 

I advise my patients to attempt achieving a respiratory of 10, meaning 6 seconds per cycle. That may be far longer than you expect, when you try doing that while watching a clock. 

The deep breathing both provides you with more air than you would obtain during fast and shallow breathing and it reduces the amount of carbon dioxide you are venting into the air. That in turn raises the concentration of CO2 dissolved in the blood. And THAT has about the same effect as a mild tranquilizer! Here is reason why most meditating people appear to be so cool. 

So, if you are upset, anxious, cannot sleep etc. – try to slow your breathing as far as possible. 

Naturally, according to oriental thoughts correct breathing also provides your body with energy and power. The power that allows karate specialists to smash bricks and a tea master to prepare a cup of delicious tea. 

But this is something, I will write about next time.

1-Point Advice

Low Back Pain

  • Almost everybody will suffer once in his/her life time from low back pain.
  • The only bones supporting the center of your body are the vertebrae.
  • Thus, support of the “low back” is provided mainly by muscles around your waist.
  • Use your body to train those muscles.
  • The simplest way is walking.
  • Use the stairs instead of escalators and walk to the station instead of taking the bus.
  • The there is one acupoint known to tune your muscles.
  • The “Yang Mount Spring” (G34) laterally below the knee.
  • Regularly stimulate this point – like regular tooth brushing, using your fingers or objects with rounded head.
  • More information will come up in the scheduled frequent updates of this page.

Projects

  • 外国人が日本で鍼灸を見学/勉強したい場合の応援
    • 日本の鍼灸師 - 力を貸して下さい!
    • 外国人見学希望者を自分の治療院等で見学させて下さい
    • (中に暫く「弟子」になりたい人もいるようです)
  • 鍼灸/東洋医学に関する和英(+独)の用語集を作成する
  • 可能であれば日本語の本を外国で出版してくれる出版社を見つける(翻訳作業)
    • 「治療家の手の作り方-反応論・触診学試論」 -  [形井秀一]
    • 出版社: 六然社 (2002/01)、ISBN-10: 4901609106
  • この本に関して以前オーストラリアから来た見学者が帰国後一所懸命宣伝してくれたため、出版社2件から「興味有り」との反応があった。
  • そのため本の所々から「サンプル」を取って英訳した事ある。ここに参考までのせる。
  • 中国ではどちらかと言うと「理論」が優先的に考え、○○証だと決めたら例の「標準経穴」に治療する。患者がその場所に反応が有るか否かが余り興味がないようだ。そこで形井先生が纏めてくれた日本の触診の優れた技術を是非とも海外の方に知って欲しい!
  • 私は翻訳者が単にある文章を他の言語の文章に翻訳する物だけではなく、どのような*** 文章 = 本 ***が翻訳する価値がある事を仕事柄上で見つける「専門家」である。残念ながら実際に翻訳される文献の選択はそのような「価値」と無関係で選ばれる。以前私の意見が雑誌で出版された:
  • The above book describes the highly sophisticated Japanese palpation skills acquired and required during good acupuncture therapy. Many Japanese practitioners rely in their treatment on the findings obtained through this kind of very sensitive touch, instead of the theory and pattern driven selection of the so-called “standard point locations”. I believe, a translation of this book would be an invaluable asset to western oriental medical community in general!
  • (The link points to an article I wrote about a translators function as a “bookfinder” (in analogy to pathfinder).
  • Translator as “Bookfinder”
  • Sample -> below

自作を通して養生を促し、(国の)医療費削減に貢献する (医療+金)

須原先生との出会いが私の人生に大きな影響を及ぼしたため、最近須原先生の本:
「出なおせ・見直せ」
を翻訳する許可を得て、これから翻訳の作業に入る。
出来たら電子書籍として公開する予定。2013年12月・・・少しずつ翻訳し始めた・・・

“True” or “authentic” acupuncture

Well, this is a very much discussed topic. Although there is a serious lack in research into the scientific basis of acupuncture, an not insignificant number of studies have been performed, trying to verify the efficacy of acupuncture. For that purpose one thing that always pops up is the distinction between “true” and “sham” acupuncture. Like the distinction between the real drug and a placebo in clinical trials. Apart from the fact, that the design of pharmaceutical clinical trials cannot really be applied to research into acupuncture, the concepts of “true” and “sham” acupuncture present a problem, I believe.
Naturally, performing “sham” acupuncture, not considering the ethical implications of “knowingly deceiving” the patient, is always difficult to realize technically. But the real problem is not the “sham” acupuncture – it is the “true” acupuncture.
The Chinese try to make everybody on earth believe, that their way is the only “authentic” = “true” form of acupuncture. Yet, it uses needles almost as think as sharp-pencil mines, that are inserted “free hand”. This requires some REAL (!) skill to do it in such a way, that it is NOT painful.
I have tried a lot of different brands of needles, but by now come to the conclusion, that “Made in China” represents a very low manufacturing quality. Needling with needles “Made in China” is almost inevitably painful. I tried that myself. And on top of that, the assertion is, that unless you do not elicit the so-called “de-qi” feeling, which is according to definitions by most physiologists a kind of pain, the acupuncture will not be effective.
MOST of my patients, including myself, do NOT like the pain called “de-qi”, or “tokki”, as it is called in Japan. Thus, one type of pain coupled with another type of pain (from the technically poor needles) causes the patient CONSIDERABLE dyscomfort! In fact, and I have been told so by people who underwent such treatment in Germany or the USA, the dyscomfort is so intense, that even though the patients received money from the government, in order to participate in a study designed to show the efficacy of acpuncture, they rather choose to drop out of that study. It was just too painful. And the treatment had been delivered by professionals with something like +20 years clinical experience!
If the treatment is something like a medieval torture, so that patients break into cold sweat even before the third or fourth treatment session and therefore leave the study, the obtained results can hardly verify the value of acupuncture treatment.
Using Japanese needles, technically superior, which are much thinner and inserted with the help of a tube, so that there is usually no pain or dyscomfort whatsoever, “Japanese style” acupuncture treatments still relieves many of the patient’s symptoms – without pain or dyscomfort. Usually my patients leave with much improved symtoms and a feeling of satisfaction.

I think, the world should know about this! And put the true acupuncture into perspective.

With all due deference, but …

he entire human race uses “language”, with the exception of the comparatively few people suffering from some sort of impairment, as a matter of course. Although there are differences regarding region/land and historical time, people in a specific location and at a specific time take the use of their “native” language for communication with other people of the same time and region for granted. While there are differences among different languages in the way how certain things/concepts are handled, the basic idea of conveying information between people is probably everywhere the same. 

To quote from the Wikipedia(1):
“(language as) A tool for communication
Yet another definition defines language as a system of communication that enables humans to cooperate. This definition stresses the social functions of language and the fact that humans use it to express themselves, and to manipulate things in the world.”


Again from the Wikipedia, pertaining to communication(2):
“Human communication
Human spoken and written languages can be described as a system of symbols (sometimes known as lexemes) and the grammars (rules) by which the symbols are manipulated. The word “language” is also used to refer to common properties of languages. Language learning is normal in human childhood. Most human languages use patterns of sound or gesture for symbols which enable communication with others around them.”


Problems arise, when people of one specific region try to communicate with people in or from other regions. These problems arise already during communication related to common things like food, housing, directions etc., occasionally even among speakers of different dialects of the same language, but become much more complex in areas of high specialization. Oriental medicine is one such area. Even if one assumes, that the people who try to study and/or communicate about oriental medicine are already experts in their field, communication of specific concepts using different languages may represent a very challenging task. Assuming that there is a wealth of valuable information, which I will define for the sake of this discussion as information originating in Japan, this is and remains of very little use. That is because it is (encrypted) in Japanese, which mainly precludes access to it by most people of the world and information becomes only then really useful, if it is made available/accessible. 

I am not a scholar and do not speak on behalf of any particular group of people or organization, but would like to formulate a few of my personal concepts related to this topic. In particular I would like to focus on aspects of the Japanese language, how it seems to be currently handled and understood in this field of learning and what potential future students of oriental medicine might expect or would like to see.
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As stated above, language is used to convey concepts among people. This is an extremely simplified statement, but since I do not want to/can delve into all the complexities of research into language, communication and information exchange, I would appreciate, if you will permit me to leave it standing as it is. 

The Japanese language is quite different from both English or other European languages and other oriental languages like Chinese. It does not use articles, rarely distinguishes between plural and singular and handles nouns and verbs differently from the way this is done in English for example(5). This may contribute to the impression, that Japanese is complicated and so difficult to learn, that most foreigners are not expected to have much success. Yet, Japanese is a highly developed, delicate and elegant language. Examples of highly refined typical Japanese literature like the “Genji Monogatari” for example, even though they use the writing system imported from China, antedate comparable works sometimes almost by centuries. 

Yet, the Japanese people themselves seem to suffer from an inferiority complex about their language precisely because it seems to be so difficult and inaccessible. In a very illuminating book written by the linguist Suzuki Takao “The World of the Closed Language Japanese”(8) the author points out, that Japanese is actually one of the top 10 most spoken languages of the world. In his book he cited Japanese to be on rank 6, but while the rank has dropped to “9”(6) since its publication 30 years ago, it still remains among the most frequently, widely spoken languages of the world. There is nothing to be ashamed (shame is also a concept of special cultural significance in Japan) of. Rather on the contrary: I firmly believe that Japanese people should take more pride in their language and their achievements, which are largely expressed through this language. This in turn suggests, that materials explaining these achievements should be made assessible to the world through translation. 

However, because of their fear, that other people/languages may be superior to their own and in conjunction with the aggressive promotion of a “standard TCM terminology” by the Chinese through the WHO(7), the Japanese have adopted a quite restrained behavior of promoting/displaying their own concepts and practice of oriental medicine through the use of Chinese dominated language. The result is an almost unbearable mixture of expressions, circumscriptions etc. that make even comparatively simple ideas almost unintelligible for many students of the matter throughout the world. I will try to illustrate with a few examples.

Occasionally I translate Japanese articles meant for magazines etc. that have the purpose of promoting the Japanese concepts pertaining to the use of Chinese herbal medicine, called Kampo, as well as research into acupuncture and oriental medicine in a wider sense. 

Yet, while the use of Chinese herbal medicines in the Japanese way = Kampo should be considered an original Japanese application, editors sometimes/often cling to the Chinese form of an alphabetical notation of the relevant terms. For example, certain editors follow the recommendations by an authoritative academic (Japanese) society for the research into Kampo medicine and thus demand from me, that I write the name for prescriptions as ONE word, appearing in third place after English and Chinese like:
* Cassia Twig and Tuckahoe Pill plus Coix Seed 
* Gui-Zhi-Fu-Ling-Wan-Liao-Jia-Yi-Yi-Ren
* keishibukuryoganryokayokuinin

Here I can understand the use of an English translation. That certainly facilitates access to this information. The Chinese notation at least shows the breaks between individual characters, facilitating search in dictionaries and possibly also provides clues about the pronunciation. While the Japanese … (12)

The above shown Japanese “word” has 29 (!) characters. There are even longer ones, like for example “yokukansankachinpihangegotokishakuyakusan” with no less than 41 characters. And, while the English and Chinese terms are treated as proper nouns and thus capitalized, in the example above the Japanese term appears only in lower letters, as if it were no proper noun.

I once asked a scholar about the necessity of expressing the Japanese terms as single words. The answer was, it would be very difficult to decide where to put any possible breaks. Again, I have great difficulties in believing, that the current approach will facilitate the declared purpose(9) of disseminating relevant information. 
For example, one could easily break down the expression for the prescription called “Keishikaryukotsuboreito” in the following way:
* Keishi = drug name
* Ka = processing instruction
* Ryukotsu borei = names of TWO drugs
* To = drug form.

Not even Japanese persons would consider Keishikaryukotsuboreito” to be ONE word, even if it is ONE name. For a Japanese person the term becomes immediately intelligible by looking at its elements, in particular since the Japanese know the associated Chinese characters for this term. This latter information and the underlying structure is presumably NOT available to many possible students of the material, unless they have previously acquired a considerable knowledge of the Japanese language, and thus makes comprehension very difficult, it not impossible. This includes also the difficulties encountered during attempts of looking up the term in dictionaries, that are newly created by this notation.

When I showed terms like “ryokeijutsukantogotokishakuyakusan” to Japanese people and asked them to read that for me, ALL were struggling very hard or could not figure it out at all, although they could read, naturally, the term when it is written in Chinese characters.

A little search about the use of long words in the English language showed, that the longest non-coined and nontechnical word is “Antidisestablishmentarianism” with 28 characters and the longest word in Shakespeare’s works is “Honorificabilitudinitatibus” with 27 characters(4). So, for any “reasonable” discussion words of less than 20 characters should be suitable/comprehensible. “yokukansankachinpihangegotokishakuyakusan” (41 characters) is simply incomprehensible. The use of notations like “Thisisalonggreenhouseattheroadside” or “Lelangageestunsystme de signesidentifis permettantunecommunication entreune ouplusieursentits” would NOT help any learner of English of French respectively. Further, I believe that MOST people will have difficulties pronouncing the English word “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” with 34 letters, that was in the song with the same title in the Disney musical film Mary Poppins(10), without any practice. 

Following the same argument, I think it would help both foreign students as well as ultimately also the Japanese practitioners, if terms related to acupuncture like “Seppi”, “Hinai Shin” etc. were left in Japanese and maybe provided with a descriptive English translation. In a similar fashion the technical terms related to Judo or other forms of martial arts are used WITHOUT translation. If the provision of such word pairs is too difficult to integrate into every text, it should be no problem at all to set up a frequently updated online database with the relevant terms.

After all, anyone who starts learning a certain subject, here oriental medicine, or a particular language, here Japanese, WILL have to refer to dictionaries and other reference materials. In this respect, with all due deference, I am under the impression that the highly educated scholars who have apparently been working on the above mentioned standard terminology or are representatives of the academic societies that strive to study oriental medicine and disseminate the relevant information, may have lost touch with basic problems learners have to face. In particular regarding the use of terminology, I firmly believe that the currently used Japanese approach is wrong.

Let’s consider the use of dictionariess for an attempt to find out more about “keigairengyoto” = Jing-Jie-Lian-Qiao-Tang.
If you use a Chinese-English dictionary that provides alphabetized entries, you will know, that you are looking at a term consisting of 5 characters and can look up each according to its reading. However, there are naturally a large number of characters reading “Jing” and in ordinary language most probably no combination like “Jing-Jie”. For that purpose you need a special dictionary.

The Japanese is worse, much worse. Here you are offered only ONE term. Even if the learner suspects, that this term consists for more than one character, HOW should this learner look for the relevant characters? The term could be split like:
*   ke iga iren gyo to
*   kei gairen gyoto
*   keiga iren gyoto
*   keigai rengyo to etc.
That gives the student many possible dictionary entries to look up – a largely futile effort. 

For anyone who does not know the language (Japanese), all of the listed divisions are equally possible. Depending on how the individual terms/characters are listed in the particular dictionary, this may render a search almost impossible. If the particular dictionary does NOT provide alphabetized notations, most foreign readers are denied access to this information right from the start. I have experienced this myself many times. Unfortunately, to my knowledge there are, with one little exception(11), no proper dictionaries that would help foreign students getting access to the required information. The shortest, and only, way would always require the combined use of several Chinese-English, Chinese character, Japanese-English dictionaries. Occasionally more than one of each type.

Apart from the standard dictionaries there are a number of special dictionaries for oriental, in this context mostly Chinese medicine. Sometimes the tycoons in the field publishing those dictionaries then argue about who has the “right” translation, which will invariably be different from what is found in dictionaries published in China and among the latter ones again, each gives something different and here the English rendition itself more often than not appears to be rather dubious. What the WHO has published recently as the “agreed upon standard terminology” still feels in many instances not right, at least to me. And, naturally, that terminology assumes that everything must be based on Chinese concepts. 

Since people are basically dealing with “Chinese medicine”, this consensus is of course not wrong, but what happened to the Japanese view and all those aspects special to Japan? The basic concepts of acupuncture and herbal medicine have been brought to Japan about 1,500 years ago and over centuries after that through books and by practitioners. Yet, that is a long enough period for some original, independent developments to take place. Take for example the use of guiding tubes for acupuncture: a purely Japanese invention. In conjunction with the cultural differences, climatic and geographic differences and not least the mentality of the people this period of 1,500 years of development has led, I believe, to the establishment of conceptional systems and practical applications that are clearly distinct from the Chinese form ? even though many Japanese practitioners strongly assert, that they are practicing CHINESE medicine. 

In spite of the thus historically formed system of a typical Japanese approach to oriental medicine, the insistence of the people in charge to NOT make this information publicly known, or to choose deliberately expressions/notations that are/will be incomprehensible for many/most non-Japanese persons, is a waste of very valuable resources. 

I do hope, and possible can help to stimulate the process to adopt a more enlightening approach to the “dissemination of information”, so that the mountains of intellectual treasures currently hidden behind the veils of the Japanese language can be more easily assessed by the people of the world.



References:
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_word_in_English 
(5) An Introduction to Japanese Syntax, Grammar & Language
    by Michiel Kamermans; grammar.nihongoresources.com
    http://grammar.nihongoresources.com/doku.php
    http://www.thejapanshop.com/
(6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
http://www.photius.com/rankings/languages2.html
(7) WHOIST
WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region
(8) 鈴木孝夫: 閉ざされた言語・日本語の世界 (Suzuki Takao “The World of the Closed Language Japanese”)

(9) From the JSOM HP:
“Objective:
The intention of the society is to hold research presentations and seek communication, tie-up and promotion concerning oriental medicine and contribute to the progress and dissemination of oriental medicine, and thus contributing to the development of scientific culture.”
(10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 
(11) Japanese-English Dictionary of Oriental Medicine; written and compiled by JONG-CHOL CYONG M.D. & Ph.D.; Oriental Medicine Research Center of the Kitasato Institute, Tokyo; ISEISHA

(12) Comment pertaining to: “WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region”:
* In this dictionary the items are listed in the order “Code ? Term ? Chinese ? Definition/Description”. “Term” represents the column with the English terms and “Chinese” lists the corresponding Chinese terms ONLY in Chinese characters. That means, users cannot search the dictionary according to reading/pronunciation of Chinese terms and MUST know, what they are looking for in English. Or else they have to read through entire sections of the book.
* The only section, that provides “pronunciation” is the one listing classical medical texts. However, this too looks to users who are NOT very familiar with the different involved languages like a deliberate attempt at making things as incomprehensible as possible:
Chinese: 素問玄機原病式 = Suwenxuanjiyuanbingshi
“Suwen” may be known well enough, but xu-an-ji or xuan-ji?
Japanese: 百腹圖説 Hyakufukuzusetsu
Should it be “pronounced” Hyakufu kuzu setsu or Hya kufu ku zusetsu?
萬安方 Man’ampo ? the approstrophe is almost a relief and very helpful!!!
Korean: 鄕藥救急方 Hyangyakgoogeupbang ? I have no idea at all how this is supposed to be pronounced!
Vietnamese: 保嬰良方 Bao Anh luong phuong ? even though I do not know how to pronounce that, I can clearly infer, that the term is made of 4 characters and look up their respective meaning, if I have Vietnamese dictionary (with alphabetical notation).

Even if the above are ‘single terms’, I am convinced that native speakers of the respective language pronounce these terms with certain intonational structure, revealing the listener clues to the makeup of the relevant terms. Without these clues, in the above example the apostrophe shows the listener/reader, that there is a break after “Man” and the term is not read Manam Po. Considering that even native speaker among themselves use these intonational structures, imagine what will happen, if someone who does not know the proper pronunciation of the relevant languages tries to read those terms / pronounce them / use them during communication with other practitioners.

トーマス鍼灸院の資料館

トーマス鍼灸院の古い資料館 から

この資料館はちょっとした「お化け屋敷」のようだ。ここに集めた古い記事は殆ど今の新しいHPに「相応しくない」と言われたものばかりですが、私の考え方、私の言葉で表現している。相応しくないかもしれないが、過去にこちらの意思表現したものですので、捨てるのは勿体無い。未だ古い物を全部ここに掲載していない。時間があればその内に追加します。

PSE「法」についての意見

ファクス送信表  

トーマス鍼灸院 

宛先:          経済産業省、大臣官房広報室

用件:        PSE「法」についての意見

拝啓

  私は業者ではありません。上記の業種の職人に過ぎません(ドイツ人)。先日患者から来月に「PSE法」が施行される事を聞いて、その内容を調べたところでびっくりしながら立腹しました。多分世界のどの国で「こんな法律はどう思います」と聞いても「そんな馬鹿な」と返事するしかないでしょう。

 私は数が少ないが、時々オーディオ機器を中古で購入します。現時点使用している物の半数はそういった中古物です。どこにも問題ありません。そして(当然のこと)経済的の側面でも一々新品を買える余裕の無い者にとって中古品はどれだけありがたいか役所では理解出来ないのか、それとも使用としないのでしょうか。

 貴省が施行しようとしている「法律」は常識や庶民の意思に反してるのみならず、環境問題、地球温暖化などにも大いなる悪影響与える事になるのは避けられませんでしょう。完璧に作動する物は廃棄処分せざるを得ないからです。ただ「不要」となった物を粗大ゴミに出す事で済めばよいが、その廃棄処分はお金も掛かります。従って、その余計な費用を負担したくないが、引き取る者もいなくなるので今でさえ道路の傍、海岸や森に投棄されている物の数は増加されるは確かでしょう。

 貴省が「安全を確保するため」をこの法律の根拠とするのは良くても言い訳でしょう。何処かに問題があるようでしたら、それはそもそもメーカーが真ともな補修サービスを提供しないことでしょう。いい物を作って長く愛用されるためそれを何時までも修理できる(「古き良きものを大切に使う」)という本来の職人気質の精神はどうなりましたでしょう。この法律は日本の職人に恥をかかせます!

マイスター制度が800年昔から大切にしている国(ドイツ)のオーディオ機器愛好者より。  

Relaxation

これは大変頻繁に使われる言葉だ。映画で「リラクスしろ」も良く出るし、最近の「ヒーリング」ブーム関連で「リラクゼーション」が酷使される語句だ。

それはどう言うことか少々考えたい。

語源 ラテン語 relaxare より. (re-再び+laxare ゆるめる、例えば英語では 「laxative」 は下剤の事を指している). 要するに意味は …をゆるめる, 和らげる(他有り)。

つまり、本来は「lax=ゆるい」であったものは何かの加減で「緊張」してしまった。「re-再び+laxare ゆるめ」ない限り肩凝り、頭痛、不安感、目の疲れ等など多彩な症状がでる。

図1    人形をもって体の神経支配を立体的に表現する人形(humunculus)

人体の外側にある筋肉、つまり骨格筋は例外なく「随意筋肉」と呼ばれ、理論的頭の命令通りに働くはずだ。ならば「リラクスしろうよ」と頭で命令すれば体の緊張が緩むはず。肩凝りなんて問題どこにもない!

しかし、そう上手くはいかない。動物や人間の赤ちゃんは簡単にリラクスは出来るが、通常の人は一苦労せざるを得ない。動物の場合「活動・狩」などを行わない限りのんびりと構えている。人間の赤ちゃんは安心した状態にあると自分の体を完全他の人に任せてリラクスする事ができる。赤ちゃんを抱いたままで寝てしまうと突然ぐっと重くなることがある。その際全身の筋肉の緊張が一気に緩む。

詳細の説明は非常に長くなるから少々省くが、上記の「一苦労」の一つの原因は現代社会がもたらしている「頭でっかち」であり、要するに頭ばかりを使って、体を使ったり,感じたりしない(病気以外)事にあるでしょう。

肩凝り等で悩んでいる人がいるとすれば、本来自分の意志で肩の筋肉をリラックスさせればよい。理論的に可能なことだが、どう言う訳か出来ない。なら何が出来るのか。

 図2    脳の断面図で脳内の(運動)神経領域を表すイラスト

こちらも詳細のことを省かざるを得ないだが、人間の「神経支配」を少々考えてみると閃かれるかもしれない。知覚神経(ものを感じる神経)及び運動神経は両方とも均等的体中に「配線」されている訳ではない。顔、特に唇と舌や手の先では他のところに比べて非常に密集している(イラスト1と2はそれを表現している)。そう言うわけで赤ちゃんは先ず何でも口に入れて、そしてもう少し成長したら、何でも「手にとって把握(=理解=ドイツ語では“begreifen“)使用としている。唇や手から大変多くの情報が脳へ伝わる半面に、この部分の制御(運動機能)も極めて綿密だ。

肩を選択的に「リラックス」出来ないかもしれないが、細いに制御できる手指を意図的にリラクスする事は少々の練習で可能になる。そしてその感覚を覚えていけば力を抜く範囲を段段と広げて肩や他の部分まで波及させることは決して夢ではない。リラクゼーションも訓練が必要だ。

日頃ちょっとした時間あれば、一息をして、楽に座るようにしておいて、頭の中になるべく大きいものを描いて、そして自分の指に(拳骨という関節より先)に集中して貰いたい。指一本ずつ反対の手で持ち上げて、力を抜いて、指を重力に任せて下落させる。全ての指に繰り返す。目的は指を上げた後離したとき=解放したリラクゼーションだ。指は下ろすよりも指が「落ちる」感覚を覚えてもらいたい。患者を診て手が「緊張している」人は実に多い。このような患者の殆どは手が緊張しているだけではなく,全身に緊張しているひとがおい。たんなる肉体的緊張で止まらず、精神的の「緊張」とそれに伴う精神症状を呈することはどちらかと言うと「普通」。その緊張を指から自分の意志で抜く技術覚えておけば、少しずつ体の他の部分まで応用出来るようになると信じる。説明は極めて短いで短絡的ですので、私は言いたい事が通じるようでしたら嬉しい。(何時かもと詳しく書きたいが・・・)

図3    こんな光景を描いて心広く緩やかにする